The ark of consequence
The classic rainbow shows as an arc, a bridge strung
in thinning clouds, but I have seen it flash a perfect circle,
rising and falling and rising again
through the octave of colors,
a sun shape rolling like a wheel of light.
Commonly it is a fraction of a circle, a promise only partial,
not a banal sign of safety like a smile pin, that rainbow
cartoon affixed to vans and baby carriages.
No, it promises only, this world will not self-destruct.
Account the rainbow a boomerang of liquid light, foretelling rather
that what we toss out returns in the water table; flows from the faucet
into our bones; what we shoot up into orbit falls
to earth through the roof one night.
Think of it as a promise that what we do continues in an arc
of consequence, flickers in our children’s genes,
collects in each spine and liver, gleams
in the apple, coats the down of the drowning auk.
When you see the rainbow iridescence shiver in the oil slick,
smeared on the waves of the poisoned river, shudder
for the covenant broken, for we are given only this floating round ark
with the dead moon for company and warning.
§ Marge Piercy
In The hunger moon : new and selected poems, 1980–2010 / by.—1st ed.
If you find yourself in a heateddiscussionwith your ego off on a crash flight, try imagining your grounding cord planted in the earth with Gaia swinging from it. Not only will the image return you to presence, but if you dress her quite outlandishly, the chuckle it evokes may change your mood!
Grab on Gaia
To the grounding cord
Of my being.
Hold fast, swinging in circles
That pull me
down
down
down
Rooting me in the fertile compost
Of your faithful mystery.
www.spiritualitywithoutborders.blog
In solidarity with the climate change summit, I offer this musing from a previous post. May we have a change of heart and habit.
“…This effect grants the power to cause a hurricane in China to a butterfly flapping its wings in New Mexico. It may take a very long time, but the connection is real. If the butterfly had not flapped its wings at just the right point in space/time, the hurricane would not have happened.”
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Carry your light into the dark.
Swing it wide
Into the hidden cupboards
Tucked away
Under the staircases of our souls.
Illuminate
The shadows that loom
And shatter peace
By piece by piece,
But gentle your swings-
Don’t show us all at once
Lest you send us scampering
Deeper into the cupboard.
Illuminate.
Carry your light into the dark.
Swing it wide
Into the hidden cupboards
Tucked away
Under the staircases of our souls.
Cauterize.
Bring your light beside our wound
To staunch the steady stream of negativity
That threatens our well-being;
A slow burn, endearing and enduring.
Cauterize.
Carry your light into the dark.
Swing it wide
Into the hidden cupboards
Tucked away
Under the staircases of our souls.
Heal,
Lightbearer.
Ignite us with love
And stoke it, until transformed,
We bear the light to others.
Heal.
Carry your light into the dark.
Swing it wide
Into the hidden cupboards
Tucked away
Under the staircases of our souls.
c. Rita Hemmer Kowats
November 5, 2021
BELOVED IS WHERE WE BEGIN
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
It seems to be our human experience in dealing with chronic disease, (especially an unseen one) that we unintentionally hurt and misunderstand one another. Instead of asking for an explanation so we can understand and support, we sometimes make assumptions based on ignorance. Other times we are impatient and push the other to get better because we’re tired of listening. Sometimes a valid sentiment! I’ve done all the above! Likely you have too.
My spiritual practice around this tendency, however, takes a different perspective. I want to grow into a place where I don’t have to have full understanding and respect around the chronic disease that I have lived with for ten years. Enough of this lonely feeling of abandonment!
This mantra seems especially timely considering the pandemic when so many suffer so intensely:
I am Beloved.I have everything I need within me.
I am Beloved.
I rediscovered this photo while rummaging in a long-forgotten drawer for a greeting card. The find has had me rummaging through the time I spent in the Ground Zero community, a nonviolent resistance movement to nuclear weapons. I lived in the woods in a house above the railroad tracks that moved weapons and fuel in and out of Subase Bangor in Poulsbo/Silverdale WA. Perhaps the message I want to share in the accompanying poem is the realization that if we allow our spiritual practice to divest us of the need to cling to possessions, the world will not need weapons to protect the “lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed.”
I.
My intrepid Blue Cream Tortoise Shell
boldly went where no sane mortal
dared to roam.
Emily slinked across the railroad tracks
which carried warheads and fuel-
fresh and spent- into Subase Bangor.
She scooted under the gate
making her way to the bunkers
where armed marines waited
ready to shoot intruders at first sight-
but surely not Emily.
Emily who did not threaten to destroy
"the lifestyle to which we had become accustomed."*
II.
Jim and I passed out the week's leaflets
from our respective lanes at Trigger Avenue gate.
We shivered against the temperature outside,
and the inside temperature of workers
as they spotted us when traffic stalled.
It was a typical early morning arrival-
yawning, putting on makeup, shaving.
Until an unexpected guest materialized
darting in and out of cars, nostrils flaring
eyes betraying the deer's sheer terror.
Guards rushed out to stop traffic
and opened the gate wide.
We waited. And waited.
Finally the deer leaped up
and shot to safety on the other side.
Jim looked at me and said,
"How ironic that she is safer in there than out here."
No open gate for those who "threaten the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed."
*Admiral Trost in The Trident Tides U.S. Navy publication
c. rita hemmer kowats Indigenous Peoples Day 2021
Curious, isn’t it?
How laying bare
one emptiness
exposes another
and another
and another.
Yesterday my friend’s cat
snuggled in her lap as we met
and I woke up later reaching for mine
but found instead the space
where he used to be.
Where a sister used or be
a brother
a friend.
As this wave of grief recedes
I comb the beach of my soul
for bits of grace left behind.
Emptiness isn’t so empty after all.
c. Rita H Kowats
September 26, 2021
Spirituality Without Borders: Reflections on Spiritual Practice 